Jersey City is losing 1 of its 2 emergency rooms. Where will patients in crisis go?
Taken from The Gothamist
March 4, 2026
Jersey City is less than two weeks away from losing one of its two emergency rooms, leaving hospitals around Hudson County bracing for increased demand.
Heights University Hospital, formerly known as Christ Hospital, is set to close its ER on March 14, after winding down most other operations last year. Operator Hudson Regional Health said its heavy financial losses threatened the stability of the rest of its network.
The hospital, which has been serving the roughly 50,000-person Heights neighborhood since 1872, was acquired by Hudson Regional Health last year.
Debbie White, president of HPAE, said the nurses her union represents at Heights University Hospital will ultimately be all right when the emergency department closes. She worries most about the residents who are seeking care.
“ These nurses can always find other jobs, but these patients in this city are not going be able to just come up with accessible health care,” White said. “They’re going to have to travel a distance.”
Ambulance services have been delivering trauma patients to other area hospitals for months.
“What the nurses have been told is that if they have a patient who has to be admitted to a hospital that they should call 911,” White said. “An emergency department that had to call 911 is insane to me.”
Vijay Chaudhuri, a spokesperson for the health system, said trauma patients who brought themselves to Heights University Hospital are stabilized before being transferred elsewhere.
Hudson Regional Health originally planned to close the emergency department last weekend, but extended that deadline another two weeks following fierce outcry from local and state officials. The state Department of Health has not approved the hospital’s closure, and has asked Hudson Regional to provide more information in its closure application.
Hudson Regional had “committed to providing long-term, high-quality health care in the Heights, and an additional two weeks fails to fulfill that promise,” Jersey City Mayor James Solomon and two members of the City Council said in a joint statement at the time. His offices referred back to that statement this week.
The state Department of Health would seek to establish that Hudson Regional’s closure plan still leaves residents of the Heights, and the area on the whole, with sufficient resources.
“While the anticipated closure date has been extended, this action does not change the fact that HRH remains out of compliance with regulatory and statutory requirements,” Raynard Washington, the acting state health commissioner, said last week. “The state will continue to exercise all available options to enforce regulatory authority while safeguarding public resources and trust.”